Chapter 133: Expensive Charms

Elizabeth immediately turned nervous after hearing Klein's reply.

Subconsciously, she began to speak faster.

"Can you help me divine the specific reason? It will be even better if

you can divine a way to solve this..."

*Divination can only give us a general direction of how to solve the

problem, and furthermore, it will be unclear and filled with symbolism,

making it difficult to decipher the hints correctly... Of course, you're

very lucky, I'm not an ordinary Seer, I'm a true mysticism

scholar!* Klein lampooned the girl's question before saying

solemnly, "Since this matter has to do with dreams, I would suggest a

similar divination method."

"Alright, alright." Elizabeth nodded her head like a hungry woodpecker.

Klein maintained his professional attitude. "I will need you to sleep

here and allow that dream to present itself. Is that a problem?"

"There's no problem, I trust you," Elizabeth answered without hesitation

while pursing her lips.

But she quickly added with a stammer, "B-but, I cannot guarantee that I

would... I would have that dream."

"It's just an attempt," Klein consoled her with a gentle smile.

He then pointed at the long sofa on the side of the Red Agate room.

"Please."

"No, no need for that, I'll sleep here." Elizabeth shook her head

gently. She crossed her arms and said, "I sleep like this at school

after classes whenever I feel tired."

She used her arms as a pillow and leaned forward onto the edge of the

table.

"Alright, you can pretend that I'm not here." Klein smiled as he

observed the colors of her aura and emotions. He used them to deduce if

the girl had fallen asleep or not.

"Okay." Elizabeth closed her eyes and buried her face into her arms,

trying hard to ease her breathing.

Klein didn't speak as he leaned back into his chair. The room suddenly

became unusually quiet.

It was a peaceful silence, a silence that could make one forget their

troubles.

Sometime later, Klein took out a semicircular piece of silver from his

pocket after he confirmed that Elizabeth had fallen asleep. The piece of

silver was filled with indecipherable Hermes phrases as well as symbolic

imagery and numbers.

It was a Dream Charm that Klein had succeeded in making the previous

morning!

He had also finished making two Slumber Charms and two Requiem Charms.

The former were made with rectangular pieces of silver while the latter

were made with triangular pieces. This was to help him differentiate

between them solely by touch during an intense battle.

"Crimson!" Klein softly recited the phrase in ancient Hermes.

This was the activation incantation that he had set. Since there was

still the step of injecting spirituality into the charm, there was no

need for his incantation to be different from the rest. All it needed

was to be short and easy to remember.

The mysterious incantation reverberated around the room. Klein felt the

Dream Charm become light in his hand, as if it had temporarily lost its

weight.

Klein immediately placed the charm on the table in front of him after he

injected it with his spirituality.

A transparent flame leapt up silently, enveloping the charm and became a

deep, serene black.

The black flames spread quickly, enveloping Elizabeth and Klein.

Klein seized the opportunity to enter his state of Cogitation. He used

his spirituality to look at the illusory spherical light in front of

him.

The spherical light was surrounded by a boundless darkness, making it

seem exceptionally lonely.

Klein didn't dare delay any further as he emitted his spirituality,

allowing it to touch the illusory ball of light.

Silently, the scene around him started to coruscate and warp, but it

quickly settled into a yellowish-brown plain. The plain was littered

with the corpses of horses and humans. Fresh blood and weapons could be

seen everywhere.

Elizabeth was wearing a regal gown with engageantes and a fishnet hat.

She was looking around, lost.

She quickly saw Klein's figure and revealed a look of surprise and joy.

"Mr. Moretti, we meet again! I had suspected that the Klein Moretti on

the name register was you when Selena and I came to get a divination. I

came again multiple times, but always missed you as I had to attend

lessons during the day...

"When I was free during the summer break, I was dragged to a holiday at

Lamud Town by my parents...

"You can help me right?"

Klein froze for a moment when he heard the girl's talkativeness.

*To think that Elizabeth had suspected that I was working part-time at

the Divination Club and tried to find me on multiple

occasions...*

Yet, she didn't appear abnormal at all!

Hmm, her surprise was authentic, masking her true thoughts...

*Indeed, everyone's dream shows their most honest side, other than me,

Mr. Fool.*

As he was indulging in his thoughts, Elizabeth's dream changed. A tall

knight, about 1.9 meters in height, was walking toward them, dragging a

broadsword which was scraped the ground.

This knight was dressed in black armor. The metallic sounds of metal

colliding could be heard with his every step. Two blobs of red light

akin to flames peeked out from the slit of his faceplate; they were

staring at Klein and Elizabeth intently.

*The will of a wraith... Still not at the stage of an evil

spirit.* Klein, who was in his spirituality state, didn't need

to activate his Spirit Vision.

According to the classifications based on the Nighthawks' confidential

information, the feelings of vengeance and injustice left behind by

spirits were the weakest and easiest kinds of souls to deal with.

Following those were shadows and wraiths. Evil spirits were the most

difficult soul-like creatures to deal with. The most horrifying of evil

spirits were said to be as strong as High-Sequence Beyonders.

With this in mind, Klein took a step forward, blocking Elizabeth behind

him. He then stomped down with his foot and shattered the dream.

Multiple specks of light scattered like fireflies. Klein's spirituality

returned to his body, allowing his eyes to once again adapt to the

darkness of the Red Agate room. He saw the tools needed for divination

placed around the table, as well as the Dream Charm that had almost

finished burning.

Klein felt the pinch when he saw this. Charms in the Evernight Goddess's

domain were all made using pure silver, so it pained his heart.

*Using these charms is akin to burning money! Even if I don't account

for my labor costs, the materials alone already averaged to about six to

eight soli per charm!*

Well, he felt a little more at peace when he thought of the Beyonders

from the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun. After all, they burned

gold---the corresponding metal for the Sun was gold.

Elizabeth groaned softly and slowly woke up before straightening her

posture.

She glanced furtively at Klein and asked, "Mr. Moretti, were there any

results from your divination?"

"Yes." Klein nodded seriously. "Your nightmares should disappear in no

more than a week."

*I will report this to the Captain and get him to send someone to deal

with it at Lamud Town...* Klein added in his heart.

"Really? That's great! Thank you Mr. Moretti!" Elizabeth became excited.

She then suddenly creased her brows.

"What's the matter?" Klein asked in concern.

"Nothing. I just remembered that I have to go home now." She slowly took

out a single soli bill that she had prepared and placed it on the table.

She then grabbed her hat and bade goodbye to Klein a little hesitantly.

After leaving the Red Agate room, Elizabeth walked toward the stairs

outside the door. She flailed her arms after she confirmed that no one

was watching and groaned softly, "Pins and needles! How numbing..."

In the Blackthorn Security Company, Dunn rubbed his forehead as he

looked at Klein.

"Did you suddenly return because you came across another supernatural

incident?"

Hey, Captain, what's with that tone of disparagement... Klein

cleared his throat and answered without hesitation, "Yes."

"What's the matter this time?" Dunn Smith rubbed his forehead again.

Klein organized his words and replied, "Two things. For the first

incident, I discovered 'Monster' Ademisaul hunched in a corner,

shivering in fear when I was buying materials for my charms at the

underground market."

When he said that, he hinted heavily that he needed a reimbursement for

the materials.

Klein couldn't mention the fees for the detective he employed to find

Daxter Guderian, for it involved the red chimney. He deeply regretted

not employing separate detectives.

Dunn seemed to fail to read between the lines as he nodded slightly.

"What happened to Ademisaul?"

Klein exhaled silently and described in detail, "Ademisaul had a dream.

He dreamed that there were corpses and blood everywhere. One of the

corpses was his, and thus he became very frightened."

Dunn thought for a moment before asking slowly, "As a Seer, what do you

think it symbolizes?"

"A disaster. A disaster that spans a wide area. But I have no

information other than this. Furthermore, not everything in Ademisaul's

dream might have a symbolic meaning," Klein said while deliberating his

words.

"I will report this to the Holy Cathedral and see what they have to

say." Dunn shook his head and said in a self-deprecating manner, "This

isn't something I have expertise in."

Klein didn't have any other ideas either. He changed the subject and

spoke about the wraith harassment Elizabeth faced.

"Lamud Town... Is that lady a believer of the Goddess?" Dunn asked.

"Yes." Klein gave an affirmative answer.

"Then there should be no problems. Let's head over to Lamud Town now and

try to get dinner there. Oh, and bring Frye along. His abilities should

prove useful if the incident involves corpses and ghosts." Dunn massaged

his temples and tried his hardest to contemplate whether he had

forgotten anything.

If Elizabeth wasn't a believer of the Evernight Goddess, then they would

have to hand her over to the Mandated Punishers or the Machinery

Hivemind according to her faith. If her faith didn't lie in any of the

three major Churches, then she would be handed over to the Machinery

Hivemind who were responsible for the outskirts.

Klein didn't speak. He waited silently for a while before finally

hearing Dunn add, "Also, we have three men on the mission. We can

request to use Sealed Artifact 3-0782."

"3-0782?" After a minute, Klein recalled that the Sealed Artifact was

called the Mutated Sun Sacred Emblem.

This Sacred Emblem's Beyonder influence seemed to be able to last a long

time. It had the ability to constantly purify any corpses and spirits in

a fifteen-meter radius. However, it had the drawback of purifying the

soul of a commoner at the same time. Research data indicated that if a

normal human were to stand within its radius for an hour, they would

become an idiot that only knew how to praise the Sun. The limit for

Beyonders was six hours.

As for ghosts and corpses, they would scatter in less than a minute.

*Hmm, to think that the Captain would remember the codename for this

Sealed Artifact... Damn, I feel that my memory is worse than

his...* Klein suddenly froze, nearly wanting to hang himself.

Dunn Smith leaned back and looked at Klein with his deep gray eyes.

"You went to the Divination Club again today? Did you feel any changes

over the past two days?"